The Bamboo cage
by Silent Sinner Abella
Summary: A client deemed that her son is acting 'strangely' after his missing incident. With Mai unable to help from severe injuries during the crucial moment, what will narcissist Naru do without Mai’s useful hint? He will be able to solve it as always, right...?


Title: Ghost Hunt – "The Kagome game"

The Kagome game - Silent Sinner Abella

Prologue

"Ka gome Kagome…

**Children voices**

Kago no naka no tori wa…

**A child's hand intertwined with another.**

Itsu itsu de au…

**A group of children moving in a circle**

Yoake no ban Ni…

**The breeze blowing and the bamboo swayed rhythmically**

Tsuru to kame wa subeta…

**A child in the circle of children**

Ushiro no shonen dare?"

**The wind stop blowing and everything was still.**

**A whisper…**_ "Who is the person behind your back?"_

It was a game of long time ago and it had become a favorite of mine. No matter how many times I succeed to guess who is the person at my back and the others found that I'm boring because of what I did, I always insisted them to play again and again. I was never bored of it. I was never tired of it. I was never exhausted of it. Instead it caught my interest and intertain me to no end, wondering if I ever will get wrong guessing the next person in the next game but eventually, favor does not last forever.

The game, slowly without knowing - became a curse.

Every time we played the game and had guessed the player at the back correctly, the guessed person got sick and later died from an unknown disease. Day by day the players became dwindling in numbers and I was left the only one. The other children had stayed away from me – an advice from their parents, avoiding me with any means so that they would not get cursed.

Curse…Such a dreadful word. One word of it and the next thing you know is that your normal life goes tumbling down the drain. Although, it's not much considering myself as normal for to be normal you pretty much need either parents or both of them which I don't. I do not remember when my father was forever gone from this world and mine. I only had remembered my mother and she had passed away when I was still in middle-school. There were not much of my childhood memories either except for playing the Kagome game with the other children of my age, whom I no longer play with since that peculiar occurring deaths.

No one had really blamed me at first. The child who was dead foremost among all the children in the village was not someone I was close to start with and moreover he had always had a weak heart, so they had assume that the death was the cause of his heart failure. However, the next death came sooner than anyone had anticipated. Until, the last one that had to die was someone I had cherished the most. I remembered it quite clearly, still. That forlorn sight was unbearable. No, watching her was unbearable. Her sickly ashen skin was tight on her skeletal fingers that the green veins were evident to my child naked eyes. It was frightening, really. The numbness sensation watching a once cheerful life withered away was sickening. It was alarming, watching your own childhood friend wasted into a lifeless shell. For three torturing days, I had watched her fade into nothing. While during the time I constantly prayed that somehow she would get well, I pondered considerably what would happen to her parents if she would not be able to survive her onslaught ordeal. They would be grief-stricken; my parents would be, if they are still alive. Though, hope does not always last forever as she had passed away after those three ill-fated days. Her three last words to me were still ringing in my ears even after the short funeral. Even in her worse condition, she had managed to whisper those words in utmost silent hatred and hidden malice.

"I hate you…"

Hatred…Such a word should have never existed in the first place. It does make sense really; when you're condemned the title of a cursed child, you are bestow with animosity and utmost hatred. I understand, however, why she had hated me. I had taken away her life, her aim, her future. Now, she had none, only to be left to decay, only to be left to be mourned and only to be left with a prayer so that maybe she would travel to Elysium. All of that was because of me. All of that was because of my curse. All of that was because of the abominable game. The game of the Bamboo cage.


End file.
